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Frederick Douglass Quotes
“What to the Slave is the 4th of July.”
"One and God make a majority."
"The price of liberty is eternal vigilance."
"What is possible for me is possible for you."
"If there is no struggle, there is no progress."
“The soul that is within me no man can degrade.”
"It is easier to build strong children than
to repair broken men."
"The thing worse than rebellion is the thing
that causes rebellion."
“I didn't know I was a slave until I found out I
couldn't do the things I wanted”
“I prayed for twenty years but received no answer
until I prayed with my legs.”
“The white man's happiness cannot be purchased by
the black man's misery”
“To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates
the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.”
"We have to do with the past only as we can
make it useful to the present and the future."
"People might not get all they work for in this world,
but they must certainly work for all they get."
“No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow
man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck”
"I prefer to be true to myself, even at the
hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and
to incur my own abhorrence."
“I recognize the Republican party as the sheet anchor
of the colored man's political hopes and the ark of his safety”
“Be not discouraged. There is a future for you.
. . . The resistance encountered now predicates hope. . . . Only as we
rise . . . do we encounter opposition.”
"America cannot always sit as a queen in peace and
repose. Prouder and stronger governments than hers have been shattered
by the bolts of a just God.
"it becomes the Christian duty of the people
of this country to rebuke the contemptuous disregard of Christianity by
our political organizations."
"This right of speech is very dear to the hearts
of intelligent lovers of liberty. It is the delight of the lovers of liberty,
as it is the dread and terror of tyrants."
“I expose slavery in this country, because to expose
it is to kill it. Slavery is one of those monsters of darkness to whom
the light of truth is death”
“I am a Republican, a black, dyed in the wool Republican,
and I never intend to belong to any other party than the party of freedom
and progress”
“I am for the "immediate, unconditional, and universal"
enfranchisement of the black man, in every State in the Union
"I hold that women, as well as men, have the
right to vote [applause], and my heart and voice go with the movement
to extend suffrage to woman."
"Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet
depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground."
"No class of men can, without insulting their
own nature, be content with any deprivation of their rights."
"Find out just what any people will quietly
submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which
will be imposed on them."
"Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced,
where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that
society is in an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them,
neither persons nor property will be safe."
"If the Negro knows enough to pay taxes to support
the government, he knows enough to vote; taxation and representation should
go together. If he knows enough to shoulder a musket and fight for the
flag, fight for the government, he knows enough to vote."
"The story of our inferiority is an old dodge,
as I have said; for wherever men oppress their fellows, wherever they
enslave them, they will endeavor to find the needed apology for such enslavement
and oppression in the character of the people oppressed and enslaved."
"A battle lost or won is easily described, understood,
and appreciated, but the moral growth of a great nation requires reflection,
as well as observation, to appreciate it."
"By depriving us of suffrage, you affirm our
incapacity to form an intelligent judgment respecting public men and public
measures; you declare before the world that we are unfit to exercise the
elective franchise, and by this means lead us to undervalue ourselves,
to put a low estimate upon ourselves, and to feel that we have no possibilities
like other men."
"The honor of a nation is an important thing.
It is said in the Scriptures, "What doth it profit a man if he gain the
whole world, and lose his own soul?" It may be said, also, What doth it
profit a nation if it gain the whole world, but lose its honor? I hold
that the American government has taken upon itself a solemn obligation
of honor, to see that this war--let it be long or short, let it cost much
or let it cost little--that this war shall not cease until every freedman
at the South has the right to vote."
"A great many delusions have been swept away
by this war. One was, that the Negro would not work; he has proved his
ability to work. Another was, that the Negro would not fight; that he
possessed only the most sheepish attributes of humanity; was a perfect
lamb, or an "Uncle Tom;" disposed to take off his coat whenever required,
fold his hands, and be whipped by anybody who wanted to whip him. But
the war has proved that there is a great deal of human nature in the Negro,
and that "he will fight,"
"It is only about six centuries since the blue-eyed
and fair-haired Anglo-Saxons were considered inferior by the haughty Normans,
who once trampled upon them. If you read the history of the Norman Conquest,
you will find that this proud Anglo-Saxon was once looked upon as of coarser
clay than his Norman master, and might be found in the highways and byways
of Old England laboring with a brass collar on his neck, and the name
of his master marked upon it. You were down then! [Laughter and applause.]
You are up now. I am glad you are up, and I want you to be glad to help
us up also."
"I do not go back to America to sit still, remain
quiet, and enjoy ease and comfort. . . . I glory in the conflict, that
I may hereafter exult in the victory. I know that victory is certain.
I go, turning my back upon the ease, comfort, and respectability which
I might maintain even here. . . Still, I will go back, for the sake of
my brethren. I go to suffer with them; to toil with them; to endure insult
with them; to undergo outrage with them; to lift up my voice in their
behalf; to speak and write in their vindication; and struggle in their
ranks for the emancipation which shall yet be achieved."
Compiled by Thomas George
editor@Wisdom-of-the-Wise.com
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